Background
Kūkai was born on 27 July 774 in Kagawa. His father was of the Saeki family, his mother of the Atô family.
Kūkai was born on 27 July 774 in Kagawa. His father was of the Saeki family, his mother of the Atô family.
First he studied under his maternal uncle Atô no Ôtari, and then he studied Confucianism at the State University in Kyoto, Japan.
In 816 he founded a temple known as Kongobu-ji on top of Mt. Koya in the province of Kii, which was officially recognized as a training center for Shingon Buddhism.
In 823 he was invited to the capital to head the newly founded Kyoo-gokoku-ji, popularly known as To-ji. These two temples in Kyoto and Mt. Koya respectively served in the following centuries as the headquarters of the Shingon sect.
Strongly attracted to Buddhism, he practiced various religious austerities in the mountains. He compared the teachings of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, and argued in favor of the last.
His teachings stressed that all the phenomena of the physical universe are manifestations of the cosmic Buddha Vairocana (Dainichi Nyorai), and that human beings, through mystic ceremonies and meditation, can attain unity with Vairocana. Kukai also emphasized that Buddhahood is something that can be achieved in our present bodily form (sokushin jobutsu). In addition to his importance as a religious thinker and leader, he contributed to other aspects of Japanese culture.
He was celebrated as a calligrapher, being numbered among the Sampitsu, Three Masters of Calligraphy, of the period, the other two being Emperor Saga and Tachibana no Hayanari. The piece known as the Fushincho is a particularly renowned example of his skill as a calligrapher.